Like It or Not, a Solution in Syria Is the Only Way to Defeat ISIL
While the Iraqi military is back on the offensive, without resolving the conflict between the Assad regime and various rebel groups within Syria, the Islamic State is not going anywhere in Iraq.
View ArticleHow Turkey’s entry into the anti-ISIL campaign might save the Islamic State
The entry of Turkey into the war is on balance damaging for the coalition’s chances against the Islamic State. The United States must determine how to salvage the situation.
View ArticleDon’t Bother Working Through Baghdad
The United States is fighting a losing battle with Iran for influence over Iraq's national government. U.S. interests would be better served by working directly with Iraq's Kurds and Sunni Arabs.
View ArticleVietnam Teaches Us that Iraq Needs More than U.S. Combat Advisers
The advisers-only strategy proposed today by many in Washington won't cut it unless they have U.S. ground troops to back them up.
View ArticleThe Obama Administration and the Middle East: An Insider’s View
WOTR’s Ryan Evans sat down with Colin Kahl, the National Security Advisor to Vice Present Joe Biden, to talk about the mess of the Middle East and what the Obama administration is doing about it. From...
View ArticlePlaying Iraq’s Game of Thrones
The past few weeks of events in Iraq have been both personally and professionally depressing. The fall of Tal Afar was personally depressing because I spent a year in that area back in 2006-2007 living...
View ArticleWeekend Reading: June 20
Every Friday, War on the Rocks posts the best articles, analysis, and multimedia on foreign policy, national security, and current affairs for our readers in the Weekend Reading List. This week, we...
View ArticleWhoops, He Did It Again: Obama’s ISIS Lesson for Afghanistan
Washington has descended into a familiar battle: the blame game. The issue is Iraq and a major territory grab by the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham (ISIS), but that is unfortunately secondary to the...
View ArticleRealpolitik and the Misuse of History
If we needed any further confirmation, the crisis in Ukraine and the breakdown of Syria and Iraq have underlined, once again, the limits of Western power. In truth, the notion that there are many...
View ArticleSomething is Rotten in the State of Iraq
The monthly death toll in May 2014 was Iraq’s highest since 2008. The year 2013 was the most murderous in five years. In late 2013, violence flared in western Iraq’s Sunni Anbar province, as fighters...
View ArticleIraq and the City of Man
Humans have been storytellers since time immemorial. Stories are how we make sense of our world. We reduce complex events to digestible, quite often self-indulgent, narratives. I heard one of those the...
View ArticleWhat Hyman Roth Said: More Summer Cocktails
Editor’s note: Molotov Cocktail is our drinks blog. It features reviews of spirits, beer, and wine; great cocktail recipes WOTR readers are sure to appreciate; and any other content we think fits....
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